


A Humble Offering

by Dorksidefiker



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 02:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorksidefiker/pseuds/Dorksidefiker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every year, they sacrifice a dozen youths and maidens to the Shadow Man that lurks beneath the palace.</p><p>Every year, someone thinks they're brave enough, thinks they're strong enough, to beat the monster lurking in the dark.</p><p>Every year, someone is very, very wrong.</p><p>But nothing lasts forever.  No empire, no labyrinth, no nightmare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lindzzz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindzzz/gifts).



> Soooo, I might or might not be stalking the tumblr of the perfect and utterly brilliant [Linddzzz](http://linddzz.tumblr.com/), and a fabulous and wonderful AU spawned there involving Pitch as the Minotaur, and the plot bunny _would not leave me alone_. 
> 
> And so I leave this humble offering, and hope that it does not offend.

They’d been paraded before the Royal Court like so many oddities, to be observed and jeered at. The sacrifices, gathered from distant, conquered lands, meant to appear the fell beast that laired in labyrinth beneath the palace. They’d been allowed a few moments to walk about, like show horses being put through their paces, before being roughly herded into the cage that filled one wall of the great hall. The cold marble behind them was decorated with a garishly painted frieze depicting the final fates of those who had been sent down before; devoured by the monster in the dark.

Most of the others had huddled together in the far corner of the cage. A few still wept, but most had used up all their tears on the long trip to the tiny island from which the King ruled. No one pleaded, not any more. They knew their pleas would earn them nothing but mockery from the beautifully dressed ladies and lords that had gathered to watch their final hours; each one had seen dozens of sacrifices go down into the dark, their deaths marked only by their brief screams. The sacrifices clung to each other for what little comfort they could get.

Most of them did, anyway.

Jack Frost did not huddle.

Jack Frost did not cry.

Jack Frost stood at the very edge of the cage and watched the lords and ladies with the exact same mockingly indifferent expression they turned on him. He reached through the bars and picked up one of the apples that had been left just outside the cage, eating it with careful deliberation; it was sweet and crisp, not at all like the old, wrinkled things his own village dined on this time of year.

_I might be going to my death,_ he thought as he devoured the treat, _but I’ve never eaten better._

The lords and ladies tittered behind hands heavy with jewels. “Oooh, we’ve got a brave one. Oh Seraphina, come see this one! He’s just the type you do so love. Are you going to face down the monster, Brave One? Will you save us all from the Shadow Man?”

“Maybe,” Jack drawled, reaching for another apple. The bowl was yanked out of his reach, balanced on the hip of a maiden dressed in a diaphanous green gown. Layer upon layer of thin, gauzy silk draped her lithe body, cinched at the waist by a belt made of interlocking gold plates studded with obsidian and jasper, each one as long as Jack’s thumb. The cost of the dress alone could have fed Jack’s village for a year or more, and back home a girl counted herself unusually fortunate if she had even a thin gold ring in her dowry. Her black hair was unbound, and fell in a riot of untamed curls, unlike the carefully oiled and coiled coils of her fellows, and the feet that moved so lightly on the marble floor were as bare as Jack’s own. “Hey!”

That was the only resemblance Jack could find between them. He was unusually fair, even by the standards of his own people, with hair as white as the snows that coated his village most of the year, and skin that stayed pale even after the touch of the sun. _The snow would be especially thick now,_ Jack thought, refusing to tug at the hem of his own rough shirt. Everyone would be bringing out their very best candles for the Midwinter Feast-

The maiden looked down her broad nose at him, stormy grey eyes hard.

“It’s very easy to be brave in the light,” she drawled, matching Jack’s tone perfectly as she sauntered over to the feast laid out for the nobles. She picked up something round and red, dropping it into the wooden bowl. “It is _simple_ to battle monsters beneath Apollo’s gaze.” Her smile was as cold as the winter winds as she turned back, a pomegranate clasped in her hand. It went into the bowl alongside the other, followed by another, then another. She sauntered back, the nobles who had come close to watch this grand new entertainment parting quickly for her. “It’s not so easy when you’re all alone in the dark.”

“Maybe for you soft southerners,” Jack said with a smirk, reaching between the bars to snatch one of the pomegranates from the bowl. “Now me? I can handle anything your boogyman throws my way.”

One fat, bejeweled orb of a man, his nose and cheeks flushed with wine, let loose a raucous laugh. “If I had-” he panted, half falling off his couch. “If I had a silver piece for every time some pup from the hinterlands thought he’d survive the Shadow Man-!”

Jack’s mother would scolded him for wasting good food. His father might have congratulated him on his good aim. He didn’t hit the man with the pomegranate, instead striking the edge of his couch. The man continued to laugh, great belly jiggling even as the fruit slid beneath the feet of the wine bearer, sending the youth sprawling, the amphora slipping from his hands. It shattered on the floor, wine fountaining everywhere, staining fine robes with the fruit of the vine. The worst of it hit the fat noble, who clamored to his feet in a moist, quivering rage.

“Oops.”

The noble was nearly incoherent with rage, roaring for the guards, for a sword, for Jack’s _head_. The maiden turned that wintery smile upon _him_ , laying the bowl of fruit within Jack’s reach. “My lord would do well to recall that the sacrifices are to be whole and unblemished,” she murmured, walking away from the cage. She took great care to lift the hem of her gown so it would not drag through the puddle of wine.

Jack reached for the bowl, digging for an apple. Pomegranates were too much work without a knife, anyway.

His fingers brushed cool metal, and it took every ounce of his self control not to react. Watching through his lashes as he scooped up both an apple and his real prize, he thought he saw the maiden watching him, even as she disappeared amongst the milling sheep of the court.


	2. Down Where The Dead Men Go

He could _taste_ their fear, even down there, deep within the dark pit that was both his lair and his cage. He raised his head, nostrils flared, as he watched the winter sunlight creep across the bare stone of the shaft that lead to the surface. Even from all the way down there, he could _smell_ their fear; not just the children that were about to be thrown down that very shaft, but the soft, fat fools about to do the shoving. They feared him more than anyone. They _knew_ what was lurking just beneath their feet, waiting to devour them.

He longed to climb out of the labyrinth and feast upon them, rather than the meager scraps they deigned to throw down the hole, but he knew there was no way out, not up that way. Even when the sunlight was not there to burn at his flesh, the top of the shaft was barred and warded; not even the slenderest of his shadows could slip past.

There was no way out at all.

He remembered a time when sunlight had not caused his skin to blister, though now it seemed like nothing more than a distant dream. There had been a time when he had walked above, where he had been greeted with joy rather than screams. There had been a garden. A girl. He had had a _name_.

Perhaps it was nothing more than a dream. Perhaps he had _always_ wandered the dark, winding tunnels of the labyrinth. The dream-memory of the sunlit garden certainly grew fainter and fainter with every passing year, and the name nothing more than a distant echo in the night.

He didn’t bother to listen to the speech given by the biggest, fattest fool of them all ( _vain and veniel, he has offended the gods with his boasts, and I am the one who pays the price!_ ). It was the same every year, boasting of the might of his armies, and how he bends a creature from the deepest pits of Tartarus to his whims.

His meal would join him soon, down in the dark.

Every year, he tried to make it last, but the _smell_ of them was just too overwhelming. They were shoved down into the darkness, and most of them would cower right where they fell until he came for them. It was just too easy to gobble them up; he was always so _hungry_.

One or two would stumble away, try to find a way out of the labyrinth. Sometimes, they would even try to _fight_.

Those were the ones he liked best. He could make _them_ last for days before they finally gave in to fear and exhaustion.

Then he would be alone again for another year, feeding off the terror of those above.

There had been a time when the feedings were more frequent. The old fool had found the labyrinth and the beast he’s put in the center a convenient way to rid himself of enemies, but it seemed those had all but dried up.

The Grand High Idiot continued to drone on, and the sweet fear above began to give way to boredom. The thing in the shadows curled his lips in a sneer. “ _Get on with it!_ ”

There was silence from above, and something decidedly hurried about the speech when it resumed. The man in the shadows allowed himself a soft laugh, even as the grate above shrieked in protest of being opened.

The screaming began before the first one was even shoved in, not that it helped them.

Not that it would _ever_ help them.

 

The box dug painfully into Jack’s flesh as he landed awkwardly on top of a boy who still screamed for his mother. He rolled out of the way quickly, before the girl who had been shoved in after could land on top of _him_ , staggering to his feet. The thin winter sunlight didn’t reach down the shaft, so he was left standing in twilight gloom as his fellow captives continued to rain down.

Five passages split off from the shaft, each one equally dark and uninviting. He reached into his shirt, feeling the warm length of the the little golden box. He’d fought with himself to keep from even _looking_ at it for most of the night, until they’d finally been herded back into the cell in the palace’s cellars. The others had somehow managed to find sleep, but Jack had been too interested in the puzzle presented by both the maiden and the box.

Inside, he’d found a ball made of a thin gold chain, each of the tiny links inscribed with the words of the conquerors who now sacrificed him. Jack could speak the language well enough, and understand it, but learning to _read_ it had never been much of a consideration.

The others huddled together, watching the dark around them in stark terror. Stories of the Shadow Man had spread throughout the lands conquered by the southerners, of how he wore the skins of his victims as a robe, and how he snatched naughty children from their very beds to drag them off into the dark. Jack knew the stories too. He’d _told_ the stories, now and again, adding his own embellishments and flourishes.

In his stories, a brave and true hero always came and slew the Shadow Man.

“Everything’s gonna be alright,” he said reassuringly, pulling the box from his shirt. “We’re gonna find the way out, and we’re gonna go ho-”

Jack only _just_ saw the shadow move where it shouldn’t have.

Then the screaming began.

 

A few of them ran. A few were too hurt from their fall to run. Most were just too frightened, and the cowered like rabbits before a snake He spared no thoughts for those who ran. It wasn’t as though they could go anywhere where he could not follow.

 

Jack didn’t stop running until his foot caught on an uneven bit of paving, sending him sprawling. He could taste blood in his mouth, and his heart was pounding in his ears.

He knew now -- no story could ever capture the true horror of the thing that lurked in the labyrinth. They were all just shadows of the real monster.

_Shadows._

Jack started to laugh, rolling onto his back and wiping away the blood with his hand. “He’s just a shadow on the wall,” he whispered to himself, opening up the little box with a flick of his thumb. The gold chain within glowed with it’s own faint, warm light. She’d been right; it was much harder to be brave in the dark.

“But I’ve got just a little spark of light with me, don’t I?” he asked, unspooling a length of chain. It ended in a small hook, and after a few moments, he grinned and drove the hook into the soft mortar between the stones. When he tried to pull it back out, he found that it was stuck fast. He had _no_ idea where he was... but at least he had a starting point.

_Someone_ had built this labyrinth, once upon a time. There had to be more than just one way in or out. All he had to do was find it.

Without getting eaten.

 

The chain was a surprise. Others, who thought themselves the hero of the tale, had come down into the dark with swords and torches and armor, ready to slay the terrible monster. Most had barely lasted longer than the ones who simply screamed and cowered before him. Some had died even _faster_ , leaping into his jaws with suicidal gusto.

He hadn’t even noticed it, until he realized that he was a sacrifice short.

As there would always be ‘heroes’, there was always the ones who thought that running would save them. The map maker had lasted nearly a week, until he had realized that the labyrinth was very much a _living_ thing, ever changing, never _still_.

The chain glimmered softly, offering the first illumination the corridors of the labyrinth had seen in years, each link like a tiny star. Someone had worked a great deal of love into the chain; closer inspection revealed that what he had first taken for tool marks were in fact words, a prayer stretching out into the darkness.

_O Persephone, let those shades who yet wander-_

His fingers itched to touch the chain, but he did not. Such things were not for _him_ , and he would rip the final breath from the lungs of the urchin who had dared to bring such a thing into _his_ realm.

After all, the youth had so thoughtfully left a trail. It would be a shame not to make use of it.


	3. Bound

“This is a remarkable show of faith for you.”

Seraphina didn’t rise from where she knelt, a thin length of golden chain twisted between her fingers, but the gentle murmur of prayers stopped. The unruly tumble of her curls, dampened by the salty spray of the sea crashing into the rocks, hid her face, but there was a smile in her voice. “I have a good feeling about this one, little bird.”

Toothiana hopped lightly from one perch to another, slowly making her way down the rocky incline until she joined Seraphina before the door. It was a surprisingly simple thing, little more than a grate over a hole cut into the cliff. The bars were covered in rust that came off on her fingers when she touched it, and at it would take to open it would be a good, hard pull. The lock had long since rusted away, and what remained of it was slowly being swallowed up by the few, hardy vines that clung tenaciously to the cliff.

There had been more vines yesterday, twining around the rusting bars, but they had all been cleared away.

Toothiana perched on a rock rather than kneel in the damp sand, the golden shackles around her ankles scraping against the stone. They were little more than ornaments, but they might as well have been the heavy iron shackles that had bound her when she had first come to the island. _You are a thing, just another pretty little pet for the menagerie,_ they said. 

Her cage had grown to encompass the whole of the island, but it was still a cage.

It had been Seraphina who had first shown her how she might escape it.

_Be quiet, be still, be obedient. Wait, wait, let them forget that you have not always been there. Be silly and simple, and watch while shiny new toys are brought forth. They forget, they always forget. But you do not._

Toothiana had not forgotten, and it had been Toothiana who had helped the weave the spell of remembrance into a fine gold chain that the boy now carried with him in the dark. If the gods were willing (her gods, Seraphina’s gods, the boy’s gods, any gods at all), the chain would lead him back out again.

It was what he might bring out with him that worried Toothiana.

“Sera, what comes out-”

Seraphina resumed her prayer, louder than before. Toothiana slid off her perch to stand in front of her, bangles and bracelets catching the winter sunlight. She let Seraphina pray a few moments more before reaching out to twist that long black hair through her fingers, pulling sharply. Seraphina’s head jerked up, beautiful white teeth bared in a hiss of pain. “ _Sera-_ ”

“ _I know._ ” Seraphina got to her feet, gripping Toothiana’s wrist until she released her hair. “I know far better than _you_ what lurks in that labyrinth. I _know_ whatever comes out may well not be my father at all.” She squeezed Toothiana’s wrist until she cried out in pain. “But it will be the long delayed wrath of the gods.”

“And what will we be doing, while the gods are being wrathful?” Toothiana asked. She didn’t try to jerk free, instead crowding closer to Seraphina.

She smiled like one of the terrible beasts the king kept in his menagerie, releasing Toothiana’s wrist to stroke her face. “You and I will be well away from here, little bird. We will go somewhere far, where no one knows us-”

A long held dream. A distant land where Toothiana was not a king’s exotic songbird, and Seraphina was not a dead general’s daughter.

“And there will be a garden?” Toothiana prompted.

“The most beautiful garden. And the fruit will ripen year round.”

“And we will be free?”

“And we will be free,” Seraphina confirmed, looking but once towards the sea. A little boat had been pulled up onto the beach; just the right sort to carry a few people from the island to the mainland. And from there...

From there, gold could blind a good many eyes, and close just as many mouths.

“The boy-”

“If he lives, all is well,” Seraphina said, kneeling once more. “If he does not... nothing changes.”

 

 

Jack knew, the very moment he was no longer alone in the dark. It took all he had not to run from the lengthening shadows that followed him. He could feel the hateful eyes of the Shadow Man boring into the back of his neck, and the air around him grew warm and fetid, like he had crawled into the mouth of some impossibly huge beast. The gentle glow of the golden chain acted as an anchor, reminding him that there was more than just the darkness and the monster that lurked within. He _would_ get out. He would see the stars again, and take his sister skating on the frozen pond, and tell ridiculous stories where the hero always defeated the monster and returned home covered in glory and gold, a beautiful maiden by his side-

“You know, my mom makes these really great vinegar and rosemary thing. Now, I’m not saying your breath is _rank_ , but you might wanna look into that.”

Maybe it was just Jack’s imagination, but the shadows seemed _surprised_.

Had no one _ever_ talked back to it?

Maybe they’d never had the chance.

Jack continued to walk, unspooling the chain a little at a time. The shadows slithered after him, too loud for mere bits of blackness against the wall, but too soft to be truly making noise. Perhaps the noise was purely an invention of Jack’s imagination, telling him that _surely_ the dark tendrils that moved so unnaturally were making _some_ kind of sound.

“It’s really very rude not to answer when someone’s talking to you,” Jack continued brightly. “I’m just trying to be friendly.”

Breathing. Definitely getting louder. And the feeling like something hot and slimy was inches away from the back of his neck, just waiting to _bite_ -

“They tell stories about you, even back home. We call you the Shadow Man there. They say you lick feet.” Jack twisted his face into a comical grimace. “Can’t imagine that tastes too good. I mean, I know after a day out with the sheep, my feet are pretty nasty. Mama was always on me about tracking all over her nice clean floor.”

“Uncivilized and uncouth,” the shadow man purred. “Is this what they’ve been reduced to sending me?”

“If I were you, I’d be _really_ offended about that,” Jack agreed. “You should take it up with the management. Can’t have them sending you second rate sacrifices, after all.”

Something long, thin, and distressingly solid manifested itself in front of Jack, looming like a vulture as it looked down at him with mad golden eyes. “I shall be sure to write my list of grievances upon your bones!” Grey lips split into a terrible, jagged smile, teeth poking from unwholesome gums like broken stones.

The shadows crashed around Jack like a wave, trying to swallow him whole. He bit back a scream, throwing his arms up to protect his head. The shadows groped at him, pulling him off his feet and knocking the air out of his lungs as they settled on his chest like a stone. The _thing_ winding around his legs was deathly cold, and horribly moist. 

The worst part was the _face_ ; long, thin, and grey, with a broad nose and widely spaced eyes, it was _just_ human enough to make it clear that whatever the thing was _now_ , it had once been a man. “Oh poor boy,” the shadow man cooed, “you’re _never_ getting out of here.”

Jack lashed out, bringing the box and the chain up. The shadow man flinched back with a hiss as the chain illuminated his face, eyes narrowing in the light. The chain caught across the shadow man’s wrist, revealing a thin and grey skinned arm that ended in chipped, dirty nails.

_Let them drink not of the River Lethe-_

The shadow man howled, scrambling back from Jack and fighting desperately to pull the chain from where it had wrapped around his flesh. Shadows no longer wrapped around the boy’s legs, there was no weight on his chest -- there was only him, the chain, and the shrieking shadow man. Jack exhaled slowly, then _moved_ , wrapping the chain around his hands and chasing after the shadow.

_Let them hear the songs of spring and sunlight-_

The song was like a half remembered lullaby in Jack’s head, speaking to him of the promise of spring and the welcome of those loved best. It was his sister’s laughter, the sound of drums and pipes after sundown, the warmth of the flock as they huddled together.

Home.

_O Persephone, hear my prayer and bring them home._

Beneath the shadows and the illusions, beneath tales and the lies, he was only a man. Jack clung to that as tightly as he did the golden chain, lashing out at the retreating shadows. The chain clung to where it struck flesh, revealing more and more of the tall, thin man in tattered robes. The shadows writhed as if caught in the chains, unable to flee any further than their master.

“Just a man,” Jack whispered. The shadow man was backed against the wall, draped in gold and barely able to stand upright. _Another victim?_ he wondered. _Another sacrifice?_

The shadow man curled his lips back from his teeth, sneering at Jack even as he staggered, finally sliding down the wall to sit. “Finish it,” he growled, his breath growing more and more labored as he ran his fingers along the chain. It was wrapped around both wrists now, with another loop around his neck. Without the concealment of the shadows, he looked surprisingly fragile.

“Who _are_ you?” Jack asked, slowly creeping closer.

The shadow man’s expression was bleak, his eyes empty. “I don’t know anymore.” Those eyes, as golden as the chain, closed as he tilted his head back, resting it against the stone wall. “Finish it, boy.”

The chain was as bright as the sun against grey flesh.

 

The moon was full and bright as Jack pushed against the rusted gate, a trail of gold chain leading into the darkness. The maiden was there, accompanied by a dark skinned girl dressed in the brilliant plumage of a dozen birds, each feather sewn carefully into an otherwise brief tunic. The girl lept from her perch the moment she saw Jack, grabbing the grate and pulling while Jack pushed. The maiden rose slowly from where she knelt, a pleased smile pulling at her lips.

Jack let the box drop, the chain pooling on the ground as the grate gave way, letting him tumble out of the labyrinth. “You-” he gasped as the feathered girl took his arm, keeping him from falling. He looked back into the shadows behind him, then to the maiden again. “What’s back there-”

The maiden cupped Jack’s face gently, smoothing his hair back. “Yes,” she murmured. “Come. There’s food and water for you in the boat.”

“I-” He coughed, suddenly aware of how _thirsty_ he was. There had been no water in the labyrinth, and the apples had been a very long time ago. “The man- he’s-”

“You survived,” the maiden said gently, still stroking his hair. “You have done what no one else could.”

“I couldn’t save them.”

He was tired, and sore, and starving. The chain had bitten into his flesh where he had clutched it, and _he_ had come through the dark when so many others had not. His legs _wouldn’t_ stop shaking, and there was the man in the dark-

“Help me get him into the boat.”

“But your father!”

“We need to go, little bird. Now or never.”

 

Golden chain hissed across stone, pulled into the shadows of the open door even as they retreated before the rising rays of the sun.

He had waited this long. He could wait one more day.


	4. A Northern Song

In the end, Seraphina and Toothiana chose to continue north with Jack. On the surface, their reasons were many, but they ultimately boiled down to a single thing -- they had no better place to go. Toothiana’s people were further away than their gold could take them, and Seraphina had lived her whole life on the Isle of Selene, at the heart of the great golden empire.

The first tales of what happened on the Isle of Selene after their flight reached the north lands weeks before they did; the necessity of secrecy forced them to take the most roundabout of routes, skirting the outer edges of the Empire. There were whole weeks where barely even saw anything even Jack would have called civilization -- just vast expanses of ocean and unsettled land. It was easy to miss the way soldiers were being called back from the far reaches of the empire to defend the heart, while stories of the horrors occurring on Selene spread outward.

They were calling it the Time of Long Shadows. Stories from fleeing refugees spoke of monsters in the dark, terrible horses that would throw the unwary onto their backs and ride through the night until their victims died of fright, of shadows that reached out to strangle those who cast them, and of the terrible beast that had finally broken free of the labyrinth. The few who’s memories stretched back further whispered of the Golden General, risen from Tartarus to avenge himself on the king who had betrayed him, slaughtering every living thing that crossed his path, starting with the king and his court.

Some spoke of the infant prince, claiming that he had survived, smuggled out by a clever guard to return someday and avenge himself on the monster.

That mattered little to Seraphina.

After a while, she stopped joining the rest of Jack’s tiny village at the common house whenever some stranger or trader passed through with new tales of the horror spreading through the crumbling empire. She had a garden to tend to, and a house to care for, and little patience for the stories.

It wasn’t much of a house, by Seraphina’s standards; just two small lightless rooms without even glass to keep out the chill of the long winters. Just waxed paper and heavy shutters. It was nothing like the beautiful, sun drenched villa that had been her home as a young girl...

But it was _hers_ , and she was beholden to no man, no smiling king who watched her with greedy eyes.

She had her house, and her little bird, and her garden. There was even a sweet tempered nanny goat that gave milk and only chewed on the laundry occasionally.

If Seraphina spoke with a strange accent, if she worshiped different gods, if her garden bore fruit when it should not--

Well. Gold could buy a great deal of good will, even so far north.

And what gold could not buy, Jack was happy to secure for ‘his girls’. With each retelling of his adventures within the labyrinth, Seraphina’s role in his successful escape grew. Over time, it became less and less truth, and more and more a children’s tale, told during the long nights when no soul wanted to be alone in the dark. Jack was always quick to remind those who glared at Seraphina and spoke of the southern oppressors that without her, he might never have made it home at all.

After two years, Seraphina and her little bird were little more than a pair of eccentrics, accepted by the village, if somewhat apart.

After two years, Seraphina returned from the market to find a shadow lurking beneath her precious pomegranate tree. 

She did not rush out to him, not even when the nanny goat wandered close, sniffing curiously at the hem of the shadow man’s black robe. She might have been far from the land of her birth, wearing coarse wool rather than fine silk, her hands roughened by work no woman of her exalted birth would have done, but she was still a lady. A lady did not rush.

Her father would expect nothing less.

Seraphina emerged from her little house with a plate of bread and soft cheese, and she settled at the base of the tree besides the long shadow, dividing the bounty between them. Gold chains slid around long, grey arms as the shadow man reached up, plucking an unseasonably ripe pomegranate from above and splitting it open.

“Clever girl,” he murmured approvingly.

“Desperate,” Seraphina corrected, plucking a few lush red seeds from the pale flesh of the fruit. “Desperate and angry.”

His hands were cold when he stroked her hair, and his voice was rough when he sang to her. It was no different now than it had been when she was a child, and he was the Golden General of a great empire. The monster had always lurked beneath his skin, waiting to be unleashed upon his enemies. The curse had done nothing but bring that to the surface, making the very king he had served so loyally his greatest enemy.

They stayed amongst the roots of the tree until nightfall. He faded into the shadows, and she returned to her tiny house, head bowed so that her hair hid her face.

Toothiana said nothing; for that, Seraphina was grateful.


End file.
